I have some waypoints in town that have changed and I’m curious if I should attempt an edit to update the Title & Photo or if it’s preferred to remove the old waypoint and then submit a new replacement.
Some examples:
A statue that was replaced with a different statue in the same location.
A VFW building that was changed to a local restaurant/mini golf establishment.
Welcome to the forums 
This would almost certainly be considered repurposing, so the old wayspot would need removing and a new one adding.
This is a little harder. I can imagine that it could be OK to edit but sometimes it would be considered repurposing. Personally, I’d be OK with editing because statues are almost universally acceptable.
Thank you, I figured I’d double check. Main concern was leaving erroneous photos attached to an edited/updated waypoint, but I guess I can mark those photos for removal afterward somehow (based on many photo checks I encounter in the Review section).
AFAIK, when photos are reviewed, it is only to see if new photos are valid - it doesn’t cause existing photos to be removed even if every reviewers rejects an existing photo.
Once you have new photos added, then you get request the old photos be removed.
Niantic have previously stated that the only time we are supposed to repurpose a PoI (ie when something changes, to edit it and add new images) is for murals.
Since neither of these are murals, my recommendation is to submit a brand new stop at the location for what is there now. Once that is approved, submit the outdated one for deletion. If the new statue ends up being rejected as a duplicate of the old one it would add the new photo to the old one, making a complete mess. But you should be able to appeal this
If you are going to submit a statue at the same location as an existing wayspot of a statue, you have to get the old one removed first. The submission would be rejected as a duplicate, not maybe.
Do you have a link for the mural repurposing statement?
Why would a new statue of a different thing be definitely a duplicate?! It shouldn’t be, but reviewers do strange things at times. Personally I do not submit things for removal until I can replace them with something else, because I do not like to get nasty messages from community members about why I deleted xyz, so I prefer to submit the new thing first and only remove when it already has a replacement because that protects me somewhat
The mural thing has been discussed at length on the forums. I am not good at finding links
But here is one.
Thanks
The reviewers cannot tell that the old wayspot is going to be removed. They definitely cannot assume it will be.
But if its a different statue then its not a duplicate, simply something at a similar location. Proximityisnt a concern in wayfarer so they should be checking if its the same or not.
That’s an arguable point, not a definite one with no options for different opinions.
Imagine the existing wayspot is near a cell boundary and the new wayspot is submitted 1m away on the other side of the boundary in an empty cell. That’s going to look close enough in review, but it would create two pokestops for basically the same object. The reviewer cannot know the old wayspot will be removed.
Adding new PoIs is not dependent on also removing old ones - they are separate jobs. Also not every PoI is also visible in Go to be able to do anything with. I have personally submitted a restaurant on top of a pub (the same building), which wasnt visible in Go to try a removal, so I left the pub alone.
Obviously submitting something falsely 1m to the side to put it into a new cell isn’t correct, so that’s irrelevant to this discussion.
Personally i also would submit new one and only remove the old one if new one approved.
Even if the new one was incorrectly rejected as a duplicate, thats something that would easily be reversed on an appeal.
Tye reviewer doesn’t need to concern themselves with ineligible items on the nearby unless they want to report themselves. Criteria states proximity to other objects isn’t a factor… and that applies whether the other object is eligible or ineligible.
Proximity to existing objects definitely matters when a submission is misplaced.
Misplaced submission in a crowded space - almost certainly abuse.
Misplaced submission in an empty space - almost certainly not abuse.
Also, proximity to existing objects that are very similar can be important. If a wall has a sequence of pictures, one every 5 meters, and one of those pictures is already a wayspot, evaluating a second picture requires looking at that existing object and decided if they are duplicate, despite being different, because the actual POI is the wall itself.
Similarly when people submit individual items of playground equipment.
What matters here is whether the current nomination in review is abusive or not, other possible abuse present is its own thing.
Here you are checking for duplicates, not for Proximity.
Just so we are clear, this isn’t my wording, but actual criteria.
Should I consider proximity to nearby Wayspots or Wayspot density when analyzing a nomination?
No. As long as the nomination is not a duplicate of an existing Wayspot, it is eligible to become a Wayspot. Each Niantic app has its own proximity rules to determine whether it will be included in the app.